Shelly Fan in Singularity Hub:
Atlases have long guided us through uncharted territory. Now, an AI-generated atlas by Google DeepMind seeks to do the same for the vast landscape of our DNA.
Ever since the Human Genome Project, scientists have painstakingly traced the myriad DNA mutations that contribute to health and disease. But that quest has largely been stymied by the genome’s vast scale. Only two percent encodes the proteins that make our bodies work; the rest may control how genes are turned on or off or be junk left over from evolution. With roughly nine billion possible DNA letter swaps, testing each one in the lab is impossible. Making sense of their interactions is an even tougher challenge. Yet these changes often contribute to differences in risk for cancer, dementia, and other medical scourges.
DeepMind’s new atlas could lend researchers a hand.
More here.
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